mere cat

I Feel the Need for Mead

When I think of mead, I think of a beverage so antique that it was last quaffed by Robin Hood and his Merry Men or maybe King Arthur and his posse. Mead is old, supposedly older than wine, but it is still being made. I confess I never even knew what it was until recently. Wikipedia told me more than I wanted to know, but suffice to say it is “an alcoholic drink of fermented honey and water.” I finally tasted some.

On vacation, we stopped at a “wine bar” in Rockland, Maine, called In Good Company. It was my first wine bar experience. Although I remember a place in Philly back in the Eighties called Le Wine Bar, I had never set foot in the place nor in any other wine bar since. They made us feel right at home and we were offered a list of at least 60 wines and 20 beers. There on the last page at the end of the beer list was a single mead, Lurgashall English Mead. Surprisingly, no in the place had ever tasted it, so Anne being all about honey, ordered it. Mead is neither a wine nor a beer, but frankly it's far closer to wine than beer. It smelled like honey, but was surprisingly dry in taste. Delicious. No wonder it was so popular in olden days. We ordered a cheese assortment from the tempting appetizer menu and had a merry ole time, except for some occasional urges to rob from the rich and give to the poor.